How Do I Treat New Driftwood?

[EliteFishy]

I just bought a piece of driftwood from ebay and i dontknow how to clean it. Does anyone have any advice of how to clean driftwoods?

 

[john5748]

All I did when I bought some drift wood from my lfs was to soak it in a bucket of water for a week but all this did was to prevent the wood from floating and releasing it's colouring into the tank.

With regards to cleaning it, my suggestion would be to place it in a bucket (fish only) with boiling water and this should then kill off any nasties that may be living on it.

This is only my opinion though, so I would wait for a second or third opinion from other more experienced members of this forum.

 

[Nemo8269]

I would be interested to know the answer to this too as iv'e jsut found 3 lovely pieces on the beach

 

[AndyTaylor]

Soak in hot water for ages/soak in salty water for ages to kill any little beasties that may be on it (although if you've found it on the beach I guess it's already been in salt water!!)
Scrub hard with a stiff brush...
I think driftwood might be a pain to anchor in your tank though as it'll want to float?

 

[Nemo8269]

thanks for that. What would you suggest to anchor it? Something simple that can be hidden in a sand substrate would be great.

 

[quicksilver22]

many people attach it to a piece of slate (to add the extra weight)...

but if it is properly cleaned (boiled for an hour or so, brushed down real well to rid of the excess debri on it) and soaked to rid of the tannins (causes water to have that dark coloring) and is soaked for some time (generally up to two weeks) then you shouldn't have a problem with it staying in place.


but your best bet is to use a piece of slate and attach your driftwood to that, many LFS (or LPS for the UK) have driftwood for sale that already is attached to the slate

at the same time, be careful using driftwood found in saltwater in a freshwater tank, make sure to clean it real good and boil it down to kill any bacteria or living organisms that may be on it (don't want anything to pop up out of no where)

if you feel neccessary, you can add, i say..., 1 part bleach to 20 parts water and give the wood a good soak there, just be sure to rinse it very well... when i did this, i let it soak over night, and then the next day i left the driftwood in a bucket and let water run through it (creating a constant overflow exchange of water) so that new water kept pushing the other water out, and then boiled it once more and let it cool over night in room temp water (or if you have an extra heating, water the same temperature as the tank it is going in) and then voila...

you have driftwood ready to go

(i've done a bit of research, to say the least... lol )

 

[Themuleous]

Yeh just soak it for a good week or until the water isnt to brown, takes months to get all the tannis out in my experience, but its get you past the worst stage. When I got my last bit Jimboo said he sometimes adds a dollop of melafix to the bucket as a general bacterial tonic, but if you can fit it in a pan and boil it that'll work better, depends on the size of the wood!

Sam

 

[Clunky]

does the same apply to driftwood that is in cellephane bought from lfs as l have bought this a couple of weeks ago and was unsure if l needed to do anything to it before putting it into the tank?

 

[Crossfc]

When I started my tank I did some research on driftwood. If you want it in your tank fast, boiling it for an hour works. Removes all the tannis. I dunno about the floating part since I got malaysian diftwood and the stuff sinks like a rock.